That F-ING Argonian
by Aeroxx1337
Summary: A valiant quest to find out what in Mara's name a Horker is. A story told in bits and pieces.
1. A Meeting

That FUCKING Argonian

By Aeroxx1337

_**Last Seed 27, 3E 433**_

_Cyrodill has the shittiest jails imaginable. On my way down there we passed at least THREE empty cells, and the idiots still insisted on putting me in a cell that was already occupied. Not only was the cell occupied, it was apparently supposed to always remain empty so the Emperor could use it as an escape route. So maybe Cyrodill just has a bunch of retarded jailers. They also have a pretty shitty royal guard service, because the Emperor is dead as fuck. I guess that was technically my fault, the two of us were supposed to guard him after all, but what kind of moron leaves two random prisoners to guard the most important man in Tamriel? Load of incompetent louts, that's what they are._

_ He seemed pretty content with the whole dying thing, though. He handed the Imperial an amulet, told him he needed to save the world, then one of those nutballs killed him dead. The other guard, Baurus I think his name was, took the swords I had looted off the dead ones, so it was a chore stabbing our way through those vile goblins with nothing but a slightly rusty sword and a weak ass Flare spell. Of course HE knew Cold Touch and Shocking Touch, but still made me use my utterly pathetic magic while he took the sword. I guess I did have a dagger, but those were always unusually shit so I didn't use it._

_ Anyway, now we're at an inn in the Imperial City, which has a name I don't care enough to remember, and he plans to start on his 'save the world' quest sometime tomorrow. I figure I'll go with him, he seems the adventuring type, and adventurers always stumble into mountains of valuables. The good ones do, anyway. The rest die horribly, alone and forgotten in a hole with the rats. I hope he's one of the former._

"Well, that's an impressive first entry." Aero muttered to himself as he closed the book. He had found it, along with some other supplies, in a torn backpack near the border between Cyrodill and Skyrim. It had been about an hour before that nonsense with the dragon back in Helgen, so he hadn't had an opportunity to read it until just now.

He briefly wondered why he hadn't followed Ralof and Hadvar to the comfortable town instead of killing some bandits and sleeping in a tent, but he had never considered himself someone that made particularly good decisions. Regardless, it was late and he was tired. He rested his head on the pillow he had fashioned out of the bandits fur armor and fell asleep.

* * *

Shelia's stomach growled. She hadn't eaten in at least 12 hours, and it had been even longer since she had fed properly. Every living thing she had encountered for the past few miles had been non-sentient, so she wasn't able to feed. The sun had been coming down on her harder than before, so she knew it had been at least 24 hours since she last fed. It was night now though, so it was time to find some poor soul to feed on.

The Argonian scanned the area, looking for signs of life. There was what appeared to be an entire town burning in the distance, but she had ruled that out hours ago. Fire tends to make things stop being alive, and she needed something that was still kicking. There was a smaller fire much closer by, which she assumed must be a camp. She took off at a sprint, hoping to catch whatever bandits surely owned the camp unaware.

The camp was covered with bodies, and she could tell there was blood everywhere. _Someone must have killed all the bandits already_, Shelia thought, hope falling. Then she noticed that one of the tents was occupied. She smiled, _It must be my lucky day._ She slipped into the annoyingly small tent and took a look at her prey. He was wearing Imperial armor as he slept, which must have been uncomfortable. The helmet was laid out next to his head. His blonde hair was short, so she had a clear path to the Imperial's neck. She awkwardly maneuvered herself into a position where she could reach his neck and sunk her fangs into his flesh.

After contemplating just tearing the stupid cramped tent down, she managed to get out of it without waking him up. She sighed as she felt the blood reinvigorate her. It was this feeling that she LIVED for, even though she was technically dead. She paused for a moment, feeling the unusually strong rush she was getting. He must have had really good blood, because her heart was pounding. It was pounding a bit too hard actually. She clutched her head, feeling dizzy. She felt like she was going to vomit, but instead decided to scream as her head exploded in pain before passing out on the ground.

* * *

Aero awoke to someone shouting at the top of their lungs. He grabbed the sword he had looted from that guard captain _bitch _and stood up. He tried to stand up, anyway. The tent he had been sleeping in was shorter than he was, so he ended up hitting his head on the top pole and collapsing the damn thing on himself. He tried to cut his way out but lost his patience and set the stupid thing on fire with a Flame spell. He picked up his helmet from the ashes and turned his attention toward the source of the shout.

There was an Argonian woman lying about 5 feet from the ashes of his tent. He walked over to check her for a pulse before realizing he knew nothing about Argonian anatomy and was only about 72% sure they had hearts in the first place. He swore under his breath, sat down on a convenient log, and decided to wait and see if she woke up.

* * *

Shelia woke up. She immediately regretted this decision as her head exploded again. It was more tolerable this time though, so she just groaned.

"Huh- what?" Aero sputtered as he woke up. He grabbed the sword from the ground next to him and held it ready. "You awake?"

"Yes, I'm awake. Augh!" Talking made her head explode again. It was starting to get on her nerves.

"Who are you? Why were you passed out by my tent?" Aero asked.

"My name is Shelia Quintep, and I was passed out by your tent because there is something seriously wrong with you." Shelia managed to spit out.

"I was asleep, what did I do?" Aero asked.

"You apparently have dwarven oil for blood. I think you might want to know this, because your blood is roughly equivalent to being sucker punched by a _giant_." Shelia attempted to sit up, but decided that would probably blow her head up again.

"Blood? You're a vampire?" Aero questioned.

Shelia turned her head toward him, "I presumed you had figured that out from the holes in your neck, or the fact that I have fangs."

Aero checked himself. He felt blood on his neck, "Huh. You're oddly up front about the whole 'bloodsucking abomination' thing."

"There's no need to be racist about it, you jackass."

"What? No, I'm not being racist, I'm just- I mean-" Aero stopped himself. "You're screwing with me."

"Yes, I'm a sarcastic vampire. The centuries start to wear on you after a while." Shelia felt a bit better, so she tried sitting up. Her head disagreed with this course of action, but she just ignored the whiny little thing. "Now, the fact that my head is still attached to my body tells me that you are more reasonable than most people in Skyrim, or at least worse with an axe. Do you have any potions of cure disease on you?"

"Uh, no. But I do have some hawk feathers."

"You should eat them then, just to be safe. You may or may not have Porphyric Hemophilia and it's better safe than sorry."

Aero swallowed the feathers before speaking again, "Can you stand?"

Shelia stood up, the pain in her head finally fading, "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." She steadied herself as Aero grabbed his backpack. "You're reacting oddly well to the whole 'vampire' thing."

Aero shrugged, "You seem reasonable enough, and you seemed to care enough to warn me about catching it. Besides, you need to eat or the sun starts killing you, right?"

"Yeah. It's a bitch to work with, but bad sunburn for eternal youth and immortality is a fair trade off in my book." Shelia said, rubbing her neck.

"Fair point. Where were you headed?"

"Riften. Heard they have a thieves guild there and I like to have connections."

Aero cocked an eyebrow, "You're a vampire and a thief?"

She shrugged, "The skill sets complement each other well."

"Huh. Makes sense, I guess. I'm headed to Riverwood, just down the road. Figure I can get some food there. You're welcome to come with, I'll buy you an ale." Aero offered.

"So, you wake up to find a vampire that admits to drinking you blood and being a thief and your first thought is to offer to buy them a drink?" Shelia asked.

"Yep."

"You are fucking insane." She said. "I like that. Sure, I'll take that offer."

Aero nodded, "Good. I'll probably need some help dealing with the dragon."

Shelia stopped, "The what now?"


	2. Snippet 1

**Snippet 1: The Guardian Stones**

"What are those?" Aero asked, pointing toward the oddly shaped stones nearby.

"I have no bloody idea, but they're probably important or magical in some way." Shelia commented.

"Tamriel does have an odd amount of random magical rocks dotting the landscape." Aero conceded. He pulled a small bag out of his pocket. He opened it and removed a small crystal, throwing it at the base of the stones.

"Wait, is that what I think it is?" Shelia asked, pointing to the bag.

"Fast travel crystals? Yes, they are."

"Those aren't exactly common." Shelia pointed out, before pulling out her own bag and doing the same.

"And yet you have some too."

"I also have about 5000 Septims worth of stolen jewelry I can't sell because I have no contacts in Skyrim." Shelia continued. "Now, do you want to tell me about that dragon?"

"I will for 5000 Septims of stolen jewelry." Aero answered blithely.

"Do you have contacts in Skyrim's Thieves Guild?"

"No."

"Then you can go fuck a Horker."

Aero gave her a look, "What's a Horker?"

Shelia looked sheepish, "I, uh, I don't know. I just heard a Nord use the expression a few days ago."

"Now I want to know what a Horker is."

"Let's hurry to Riverwood, they might know there."


	3. The Village Idiots

The door to the Sleeping Giant in was open, and shouting could clearly be heard from inside. Aero and Shelia entered the building to an unusual sight. Ralof was attempting to beat Hadvar to death with a cabbage, while Hadvar tried to gouge his eyes out with a particularly pointy carrot. Neither was succeeding since both of them were wearing helmets.

"Nice to see you two are getting along." Aero said, loudly enough for them to hear. Their vegetable themed brawl suddenly stopped.

"Prisoner! There you are." Hadvar greeted, removing his helmet as he walked toward them. "I was hoping you were still alive. Did the bandits give-" A cabbage to the unarmored head interrupted Hadvar. "Damn Stormcloak!" He shouted at Ralof, throwing his carrot. Ralof ducked and the carrot flew past, hitting the bac of Delphine's head.

"Er, sorry Delphine." Hadvar said.

Delphine stared daggers at them, "Get out of my inn."

* * *

Aero, Shelia, Hadvar, and Ralof were sitting on logs around a stump. Hadvar and Ralof looked ready to tear into each other at any moment, but refrained.

"Right. Before we get to business, who are you?" Ralof addressed Shelia.

"Shelia Quintep, adventurer." She introduced.

"That's not an Argonian name." Ralof observed.

"Correct. It's Imperial. Or maybe it's Breton. I don't know, I didn't pick it." She responded. "I'm mostly still here because you have yet to tell me about the dragon."

"Speaking of the dragon, we need to do something about that." Hadvar spoke up. "You should inform Jarl Balgruuf. He's up a Dragonsreach, in Whiterun. He should be able to do something to help protect Riverwood."

"Until then we'll keep an eye out around here. If a dragon attacks before the Jarl sends help we might be able to kill it, or at least fight it off." Ralof added. "My sister, Gerdur, should have some supplies to spare. You'll probably find her by the mill."

"Skyrim's a dangerous place, so you should get some good weapons and armor. My uncle, Alvor, is the blacksmith. He usually has something to spare." Hadvar stated.

"Uh, thanks. We'll go talk to them." Aero said.

* * *

The duo entered the Riverwood Trader with the intention of selling the jewels that Gerdur and Alvor had both decided the adventurers desperately needed. The owners appeared to be arguing about a missing item.

"Well one of us has to do something!" The woman said.

"We are done talking about this." The man behind the counter replied.

"Well what are you going to do then, huh? Let's hear it!"

"I said no! No adventurers, no thea-"

"Oh, but adventurers are the most reliable way to solve any problem!" Shelia interrupted.

The man spun to face them, "Uh, hello! Welcome to the Riverwood Trader. Would you like to-"

"What's the problem you two were arguing about, and how many septims would you be willing to pay for us to fix it?" Shelia cut him off.

Aero turned to her, "What are you doing?"

"Look, I was an adventurer for a good while. Helping random people with problems is like 90 percent of our substantial salary. Work with me here." Shelia turned back to the man.

"Uh, a valuable heirloom was stolen by thieves-"

"Where are they? We'll wipe them out and get whatever it is back." Shelia eagerly cut him off.

"You seem very eager to get us killed." Aero muttered.

"Shut up. I'm making us money."

"It's a golden claw, they took it to Bleak Falls Barrow. I'll show you the way." The woman spoke up.

"Now hold on just a-" The man was cut off by the sound of the door closing behind them. "Why won't anyone listen to me?"

* * *

"Bleak Falls Barrow is just up that way. I'd go myself, but you look like you can handle yourselves." Camilla, as she had introduced herself, said.

"Right. Let's go!" Shelia drew her cheap hunting bow and ran ahead.

"Wait!" Aero drew his sword and ran after her.

He caught up with her a decent ways up the mountain. "Can I talk to you for a-" She shushed him and pointed up toward a stone tower. Aero could see what looked like bandits crawling around in front of and on top of the tower. She took aim with her bow and hit one of the ones at the top, who then fell off the tower and down the mountainside. The others didn't seem to notice.

She shot again, hitting one near the bottom. The bandit turned toward them and shouted for his allies before a second arrow killed him. Shelia kept firing as three bandits ran toward them. One of them, an Orc, made a beeline for her. Aero bashed him with his shield, and then ran him through. Another died to an arrow, and the last one tripped over his own feet and hit his head on a rock.

"Now that that's out of the way, can I talk to your for a second?" Aero asked.

"Sure." Shelia responded.

"Thank you. Now, why did you just assume I would go along with this?" Aero asked.

"Because money, and we get to kill bandits. What's not to like?"

"I like killing bandits as much as the next guy, but I think you may be being a bit hasty. You just rushed getting an errand out of what's-his-face and ran off."

"I never was much one for pleasantries. Besides, I'm not usually the one that does the talking." Shelia replied. "So, are you gonna help get their heirloom back, or should I just do it myself?"

"Sure, I guess. With my skillset it's adventurer, mercenary, or soldier. Haven't tried adventuring yet." Aero conceded. "So, uh, lead the way."

"What? No. You go first."

"You're the one that ran on ahead!"

"And you're the one with an inch of steel separating you and people that want to stab you. You first."

"Fine, fair point.

* * *

The Barrow was dark, cramped, and covered in cobwebs. Shelia stopped a moment to bask in the nostalgia while Aero tried to get all the webs off of his armor.

"Ah, this takes me back. Why did I stop doing this again?" She said.

"The smell, probably. What is that, anyway?" Aero cupped his face.

"Smells like zombies. Those things just infest caves like this, though if I remember they used to smell more like stale blood. All I can smell is death."

They progresses forward, killing a few spiders along the way. There was a voice coming from down the hall, calling for help. They rounded a corner and saw the source of the voice. There was a bandit caught in a web, blocking the way forward.

"Hey! You okay?" Aero asked him.

The bandit started flailing wildly, "Above you! Above you!"

There was a telltale rustling as the spider descended from the ceiling. It was easily 3 times the size of the other spiders in the cavern, and looked quite hungry. It would have been an imposing sight if it had not been on fire. Shelia had been focusing a Flame spell on it as soon as it was in range. The spell seemed to be doing its job, so Aero used his own Flame spell to hurry things up. The spider was dead very quickly.

"Was it really that simple?" The bandit croaked in disbelief. "I could have done that."

"You can solve a variety of problems by setting them on fire." Shelia responded. "Are you the bandit that stole the Golden Claw?"

"Can we talk after you get me out of this web?" The bandit asked. The request seemed reasonable, so they cut him down. The idiot then immediately sprinted down the corridor.

"Where does he think he's going? The way out is behind us." Aero noted.

Shelia sighed, "Remind me to never trust a bandit ever again."


End file.
